One and a half

December 5, 2012

Dear Kate,

Yesterday you were 19 months old. A little more than one and a half but this letter has been brewing in my mind for weeks but I just haven’t managed to write it. I think that I am struggling a little with the fact that you are growing up and changing so fast. I will be honest when I have heard people say things like that in the past I have inwardly rolled my eyes and thought how silly is that. But, oh. I think because we expect that you are our last baby that every new thing you learn to do is also the last time we will teach and watch a new little person learn something new and with that comes a certain sadness. But mostly I think it is because eighteen months old is a pretty amazing age.

And you are our very amazing girl. You are loud and funny. You love shoes and slippers (slippys). You can take your own shoes off and can put Piran’s shoes on your feet. You know where to go and find your shoes and you will tidy them and put them away. You ask us for your Gruffalo hat (AT. Uffalo). You love being outside even though it is freezing. If Piran leaves the house and you don’t go with him all hell breaks loose. You have perfected puppy dog eyes (or Shrek eyes as your Dad calls them, he means Puss in Boots eyes really) and the wobbly bottom lip when you do not get your way. You say NO. A lot. Sometimes you say yes. You have so many words I am constantly amazed but with your new found ability to communicate with us comes massive frustration if we just don’t understand what you are talking about. You put words together too – Get Down, What’s That (Wasss Dat), Got it, Done it.

There are so many little things that you do that we love so much. How you immediately climb the stairs if I say the word ‘bath’ in front of you. How you like to pick up a bag and say ‘Byeee’ and if we ask where you are going you say ‘shops’. You really like books. You are very good at going to bed at night, we ask you if you want to go to sleep and you say yes and we lie you down and that is it. Sadly, you usually wake in the evening or night for some reason or other and at the moment you just sob “no, no, no, no, no” over and over and it is heartbreaking.

Your brother is your favourite person and you follow him faithfully no matter how much he lays on top of you. Quite often he no longer wants a cuddle from me when he is upset, he will ask for one from you. You love to play with him and the love on your face when you are with him just makes me want to pop. I know that he thinks that his “Katie” is his world too. One thing though. If the two of you could stop having arguments that just go like this “AAY” “AAY” “AAY” “AAY” “AAY” “AAY” that would be great. You sound like the Australian crabs on Finding Nemo and after a whole day of it I want to poke things in my ears. In fact, if you could work on your volume levels over all that would be great, you can be very loud.

You are fearless and it amazes me. You make your brother much braver and that is a good thing, but you scare me daily as you try to clamber up and over things and copy Piran and just do things that you are not quite ready for yet. You are constantly tumbling and wailing and then after a few seconds of a cuddle you are off doing the same thing again. You are strong minded and it is very hard to get you to do something you don’t want to. Which makes me feel good about the future as I don’t think you will be easily led. That said, you could well be the one leading others astray – it really wouldn’t surprise me.

You are curly and crazy and funny and loud. Your mouth is usually wide open and you are usually shouting or laughing or chatting. You are full of energy and rarely sit still. One thing though, if you wouldn’t mind letting me have a cuddle every now and again I would be very grateful. Love you baby girl, a little ore every time I look at you.